The duo took a few moments to rest at the bonfire as they determined which path to take from where they were sitting, as either one of them could take them to where the King was located and they had no idea which of them was the correct path to take in this situation. The man that Rarity had spoken to, who apparently called himself Benhart and was only now offering the two of them his name, was still sitting in his spot near the wall, though at the same time Rarity had already apologized for snapping at him like she had. She had originally assumed that he was another inhabitant of this world and was somehow bypassing all of the stuff she and Edric had done to get this far, but now it appeared that he was one of the Undead who had gotten pretty far in their journey, only to stop for some unknown reason, and was now offering his help to any of the other Undead that might need assistance.
Of course Benhart already knew that neither Rarity or Edric needed assistance, not when they seemed to be such an unstoppable team, but that didn't stop him from appearing every now and then to check up on their progress... which only reminded Rarity of Shalquoir.
Once the duo was rested they picked themselves up and headed through the corridor that was on the right of the entrance, instead of heading forward since the path opposite of the entrance led down, before they came to some stairs that had a knight standing on the landing in front of them. Edric walked up the stairs and engaged the knight in a rather short battle, while Rarity noticed some archers on the top of the building to her left and waved her staff at them, to which several Dark Orbs collided with her targets and knocked them all down, meaning that they couldn't hurt either of them with their arrows for some time. Unfortunately the journey along this path came to a swift end, as the door they had been walking towards was sealed off by a barricade, which both Rarity and Edric agreed could only be unlocked from the other side of the metallic structure... to which they turned around and headed back the way they came, so they could pick the path they had decided to ignore, since it was the correct path all of a sudden.
At the end of the descending corridor rested what appeared to be an elevator of some kind, but since it wasn't on their level they couldn't access it right away, to which Edric ignored the lever that was to the left of the entrance and started climbing the ladder on his right. As he did that Rarity examined the strange door behind the elevator and discovered that it was locked, and that it could be unlocked in some manner, before sighing as she followed after her companion and started ascending the ladder as well. At the top of the ladder the duo approached an iron door, which they could see through thanks to the slots that had been made when the door was being constructed, before the two of them opened it and jumped down into the area in front of them, which was a decent sized chamber that had several knight statues that were waiting to come alive... along with a golem that was standing in front of another pedestal shaped key, which meant that they needed a soul to feed to it, just like the others they had encountered so far.
Fortunately it was rather easy for the two of them to activate the seven stone knights that were in the area and kill one of them near the golem, but this time around they had no idea what the golem activated when he turned his key, to which the duo simply finished off the remainder of their enemies before they opened a nearby door and continued along the path they had chosen. The room that was connected to the chamber contained two chests for them to open, where one contained a new chime that Rarity could use if she so desired while the second contained a new weapon, some sort of large hammer that Edric clearly intended on selling once they were back in Majula. From there they walked through another doorway and found themselves in a part of the castle where they could walk up some stairs to get to the level above them... once they dealt with the primal knight that was no doubt going to come after them once they moved from where they were standing.
Rarity also spotted some archers and potential magic using knights waiting for them as well, which meant that if a fight did break out between them and the primal knight she would have to take out the ranged enemies before they were overwhelmed by their foes.
As they made a break for the stairs, however, Rarity noticed that they had misjudged the number of foes in this area, as there were two more knights standing beside the primal knight, though both of them agreed that taking out the archers was their first priority. When they reached the top of the stairs the two of them separated from each other, intending to take out both sets of archers before they could react, to which Rarity focused on her first foe and hurled a Lightning Spear through her target, knocking the archer backwards in the process. The second archer loosed an arrow at her and Rarity dodged it to the best of her ability, where her shoulder was nicked in the process, to which she loosed a Dark Orb right into her target's chest and blew him into the wall that was behind the chest she had been heading towards. With her foes defeated she cast a glance over at Edric's side and noticed that he had finished clearing out his foes as well, though when he opened his chest it was clear that he got nothing, indicating that one of the spells that Shalquoir had given her had been inside that particular chest... though when Rarity opened her chest she found that her's contained an arrow trap that forced her to snap a shield in front of her to avoid taking any damage.
When the trap was spent she lowered the shield and claimed her prize, which happened to be ten fire arrows that were pretty much useless to both her and Edric... to which she sighed as she rejoined Edric as he attacked the three knights that were guarding the door in front of them. Fortunately the three of knights didn't stand much of a chance against their might, since they already knew how to deal with these types of enemies, though once the way was clear Rarity and Edric walked through the doorway and discovered a more ornate door that they opened. That, in turn, allowed them to walk outside the castle and fight another primal knight that was definitely waiting for them, along with the three archers that Rarity had knocked onto their backs earlier. While Edric distracted the primal knight Rarity finished off the enemies she had struck earlier and made sure that this time they were down for the count, before aiding Edric in fighting the primal knight that wanted them dead.
A few moments later the primal knight was taken care of and they walked down the stairs on their right, allowing them to access an area that contained a lever that lowered the iron barricade they had seen earlier, opening up a shortcut for them to use while finding a chest that contained a flask shard... while at the same time Rarity found some Repair Powder, which she handed to Edric, and some Flame Butterflies that she stuffed into her bag, before they headed back to the elevator area they had passed by earlier.
Since all of their foes had been taken care of, and they didn't need to rest at the bonfire just yet, Rarity and Edric walked towards the elevator and found that the plate was resting in the hole that was between them and the door that was in front of them. The two of them then walked onto the panel in front of them and watched as the elevator started to move, to which they patiently waited as they ascended towards the top of the tower that they were in, before they came to a stop in front of another ornate door. When they opened this one Rarity spotted a poor corpse chained to a door, acting like a lock by the looks of it, that happened to be connected to a cage that a lady happened to be locked inside, though the lady didn't even lift her head as they walked into the chamber she was imprisoned in. Rarity had no idea what could have caused the King, or the Queen for that matter, to imprison someone in such a manner, but right now she couldn't do anything to help the lady, so she and Edric opened the three iron chests to see if there was anything useful in them.
The chest on their left contained a key with a note that said it was for the 'King's Passage', a location that neither Rarity or Edric knew about, but that didn't stop them from collecting the key and making sure that it was on hand for when they found the door it went to. The chest that was directly behind the cage contained some sort of vessel, which they could ask Shalquoir what it was, and a seed that had a hint of fire about it, to which the duo simply pocketed the items and approached the final chest, where they found nothing. Rarity chuckled, because Shalquoir's gift of a spellbook was making it so she and Edric found locations of several of the spells that were inside the book, only now the pages were missing from the chests that they would have been in. Once they had opened all three of the chests, and had all of the treasure that they could possibly get their hands on, the duo stared at the lady for a few moments before they returned to the elevator and rode it back down to the level near the bonfire.
When they reached the level near the ladder, and the bonfire for that matter, Rarity stared at the door that was opposite the stairs and approached it, to which Edric walked up to it and slipped the new key they had acquired into the slot that was in the middle of the door... though they smiled as the door opened and revealed a walkway that they could use to move forward. At the very end of the passage, however, rested a fog door, causing the duo to walk back to the bonfire and rest for a few moments before they returned to the now open door, as they wanted to be prepared for the eventual powerful creature that they had been warned about. Once they returned to the passage the duo discovered that it enlarged by quite a bit, but with the number of statues lining the path in front of them they both knew that some of them were going to come to life... though that was followed by three of the closest statues coming to life and beginning their march towards where the duo was standing.
Rarity and Edric discovered that these particular statues were actually slightly stronger than the other statues they had fought throughout the entire castle, as Edric suffered a few cuts while they fought them, but instead of him wasting his own flash Rarity used her lowest powered healing spell, so she could have the higher powered ones for the powerful creature that was waiting for them. After taking out the three statues another one came to life and was joined by the knight that was guarding the fog door, to which Edric carefully fought the statue while Rarity flanked the knight and simply cut her target with her sword. Sure, she knew that her attacks weren't as powerful as Edric's were, but it distracted her foe long enough for Edric to finish his opponent off and cut down the knight from behind, though she had refrained from using magic since they had a powerful foe coming up.
The instant they had finished off the rest of their enemies, and were sure that none of the other statues came to life, they approached the fog door and walked through it, where they entered a ruined part of the castle where a knight in shining armor, quite literally since his armor appeared to be polished to mirror like quality, waited in the middle of the area they had discovered.
Not even a few seconds later the knight glanced at them and jumped into the air, forcing both Rarity and Edric to move to the side and separate from each other as the knight's sword struck where they had been standing mere moments ago, before he stood up and raised his sword towards the sky. Rarity, seeing what was coming, snapped her fingers and a barrier surrounded both her and Edric, informing her companion that this wasn't the type of attack they wanted to take head on while they were recovering from dodging the first attack. That was followed by the knight spinning around and loosing a wave of blue lightning at them, which crackled over Rarity's barrier for a few seconds before disappearing, to which she lowered her own barriers and both she and Edric put some distance between them and the knight.
One thing Rarity had to be careful about was how she used her magic, because if she threw a spell too early the Looking Glass Knight, as she had decided to call this enemy, would turn his shield towards her and let the mirror-like surface reflect the attack into the sky. Fortunately the Looking Glass Knight opened himself up to attacks from behind when he focused on a single opponent, so when he focused on Rarity, and chased her around the area, Edric would run up and attack him from behind until he stopped following her. After that the Looking Glass Knight would turn around and face Edric, where they would repeat the same process, while Rarity carefully aimed her attacks for when he was distracted by attacking, dealing decent damage in the process. Edric did get hit once while they were doing that, where a terrible gash was cut into both his body and armor, to while he healed himself Rarity took their opponent's attention as Edric drank from his flask, which restored his body and armor to their prior condition, allowing him to jump back into the fight.
The fight got more interesting when the Looking Glass Knight heaved his shield into the air and slammed the base of it into the floor in front of him, but instead of attacking him both Rarity and Edric regrouped for a moment and watched their foe with some interest... though that was before a black specter burst out of the mirrored surface of his shield, where it staggered for a moment before standing straight, indicating that this opponent could summon allies. The black specter appeared to be a fighter of some kind, as he didn't have any weapons and wore a simple piece of clothing over his chest and his lower body, though he intended on fighting Rarity. As she pulled him away from the Looking Glass Knight, so she didn't get in the way of Edric's fight, the black specter rushed at her and punched her in the chest, causing her to stagger for a few seconds, before knocking her staff, sword, chime, and pyromancy flame away from her, leaving her without a way to access the magic of this world for the moment.
Personally she was surprised by the speed and power of her opponent, as she never expected the Looking Glass Knight to summon someone on this level, to which she sweated for a few moments as she stood back up and faced her foe, who was patiently waiting for her to steel herself before attacking again.
This time around, when the black specter attacked her, Rarity used her arms to block the incoming attacks, though the specter slipped through her miserable defenses and punched her in the chest, before spinning around and kicked her in the chest, knocking her into the pillar behind her. Rarity coughed as she pulled herself off the pillar and gathered her magic around her hands, where she loosed a series of fire and dark based attacks, though the black specter rapidly moved it's arms around and smacked her attacks away, before striking her once more. From the few attacks she had received so far she could tell that the black specter was much stronger than what she was originally expecting, though she was also sure that the specter broke something since she spat some blood out this time around... to which she growled as the Dark Magic mist returned to the area around her eyes.
As the Dark Magic surged through her body once more Rarity recalled how her opponent moved and closed her eyes for a moment, where she visualized what would happen if her body went through the movements that the black specter had done through. She could feel the Dark Magic stabilizing something within her for a moment, to which she let out the breathe she had been holding and opened her eyes, though this time around she moved so that the right side of her body was facing her foe while the left was further away from him. She stood her ground for a few moments as the black specter charged at her once more, though this time her body appeared to move on autopilot as she used used her right hand to block the incoming attack before slamming her left fist into his chest... knocking him backwards for a few seconds and stunning both Edric and the Looking Glass Knight in the process, as well as Rarity herself.
One thing that Rarity could tell, from looking at the armor of the Looking Glass Knight, was that she had a small dark aura surrounding her body, making her wonder what was going on... though a few moments later she pushed the thought away and focused on the black specter as it pushed itself back to it's feet and faced her. This time around, when the black specter charged at her and attacked her, Rarity parried the attack and the next few that came towards her, before kicking her foe in the chest. She then followed that up by letting her body move like it was on autopilot again, where she delivered some powerful hits to the specter's chest and knocked him back into the pillar opposite of where she had been hit into the first time around... before she raised a hand and summoned a Lightning Spear into her hand, which she used to pierce her opponent's chest and kill him.
As the black specter broke apart, however, she and Edric attacked the Looking Glass Knight, where she peeled off to deal with any additional black specters that might have been summoned when their true opponent wanted to ruin the two of them... before Edric delivered the final attack and pierced the knight's heart, killing it and allowing the two of them to gather it's soul.
"Rarity... what in the world happened to you?" Edric asked, though at the same time he noticed that the dark aura remained around his companion as she walked over to where her weapons were located.
"I think this was what Benhart was referring to," Rarity replied, to which she raised her hands and levitated her weapons for a few seconds, where the chime and pyromancy flame returned to where they had been located earlier, while at the same time she grabbed her staff and her sword slipped into it's sheath, "He wasn't referring to one of us dying and the other awakening... he meant that the fight we between me and something else, meaning that the death he warned us about was for me or the specter, just like the awakening. I'm still not sure what he meant by 'awakening', but I certainly feel stronger now."
What she didn't say, however, was that she wondered if Benhart had been talking about her fighting the Darklurker, but she would have no way of knowing that until she worked up the courage to challenge the Dark Chasm... which might be after she and Edric found the King and figured out what to do next.